Dear Papa

By Thyra Ferré Bjorn

Subjects: Clergy, God, Fiction based on fact, Swedish Americans, Immigration to America, Fiction, Immigrants, Emmigrants, Based on true story, Domestic, Swedisth Americans, Historical Fiction based on fact, Christian, Faith in God

Description: Editor: I have read all of this 4 book series, except one, Dear Daughter, and only because it hasn't yet shown up in our local Community Thrift Store. **Historically speaking, the telling of this families move to America and their lives thereafter, all four books in this series must be not only protected, but read, shared and discussed. Some of it is heartbreaking; all of it is heartwarming.** I'm sure you too will be captivated as you read the retelling of each of the stories of this immigrant family. **The Amazon customer below, says it all:** **amazon.com customer: July 12, 2014, Wayne S. Walker, 5 of 5 stars, sad at the end, yet triumphant** Three books by **Thyra Ferré Björn** were recommended to us by several people: **Papa’s Wife, Papa’s Daughter, and Mama’s Way.** **- Papa’s Wife** is the story of a young woman named **Maria Skogberg** who comes to work at a small-town parsonage in Lapland, Sweden, and marries an older Swedish minister, **Pontus Franzon**; they have eight children and eventually emigrate to the United States. The plot is loosely based on the experiences of the author’s own parents and family. **- Papa’s Daughter** continues with the life of their oldest daughter, Charlotta, known as Button, who marries, has a family, and becomes a noted speaker and author. It appears that the novel is semi-autobiographical. **- Mama’s Way** is a collection of incidents that occurred during Mrs. Bjorn’s experiences of speaking and writing in which she applied the philosophy that she learned from Mama to help others with their problems. **The three books have been published together as a Trilogy.** However, we recently learned that **there was a fourth book in the series** which we found at a used book sale. - In **Dear Papa**, the children are all grown up with families of their own, and Mama is now a widow living in Miami, FL. Recovering from a heart attack, she decides to write Papa a letter, describing all that has happened to the family since his death and reminiscing about various humorous events from the days that are past. The Prologue brings the reader up to date by reviewing Mama’s proposal to Papa, the births of the children, and their life in America. The author says, **“Although my stories are always based on fact, I don’t want my readers to take them too literally …. I take so much fact and so much fiction and mix them long and carefully together in imagination’s big mixing bowl, until I myself cannot tell one from the other.”** Delightful reading, it is sad at the end, yet there is a triumphant feeling.